Unquiet Title: Rewriting Indian Country in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead

Abstract:This essay reads Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead alongside U.S. Code 18, which sets out the federal definition of "Indian Country," in order to claim that the novel presents an alternative imaginary in which all North and South American land is Indigenous land. The novel achieves this reimagining in two primary ways: first, through a rejection of colonial time in favor of a longer durée marked as Indigenous time; and, second, through a remapping of colonial space through the figure of the novel's almanac, described as a "500 year map." The author demonstrates that through these crucial reorientations Silko challenges the colonial assumptions federal Indian law and produces a reimagined temporal-spatial arrangement that undermines the law's authority to administer Indian land.